On the eve of the 2020 MAAC Championships, Matt Nunnally reflects on his journey, his connections to the historic swimming program at Monmouth University and the future.

One year ago, almost to the day, the first true declarations were made that the Monmouth University swimming program had arrived.

Nearly seven hours away from the Jersey Shore, at Erie Community College's Burt Flickinger Athletic Center in Buffalo, standout freshmen swimmers Callan Smith and Camryn McHugh each became important pieces in continuing a long history of excellence in the pool for Monmouth.

McHugh became Monmouth's first woman to win a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship in the 200-yard backstroke, two days after Smith won gold and broke the school record in the 500-yard freestyle on the men's side.  

The two individual victories will always be linked as Monmouth's first MAAC Champions, with their head coach, Matt Nunnally, looking on and responsible for leading the program back to significance since its reintroduction in 2015.

It is fitting that Nunnally is the man in charge, for a number of reasons.

The history of swimming at Monmouth dates back to 1963 when Richard Steadman assembled the program's first teams.

Steadman is a household name amongst the swimming community and he built Monmouth's swim program into a national power at the NAIA, Division II and Division III levels. Under his guidance for more than three decades, Monmouth swimmers won national championships, earned Olympic gold medals and garnered 127 All-America honors. Including Steadman, eight individuals associated with the program and two teams are enshrined in the Monmouth Athletics Hall of Fame. A major annual College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) coaching award as well as Monmouth's natatorium bears Steadman's name. 

The connection between the legendary Dick Steadman and Nunnally does not stop at their mutual job title.

"As a kid I was in Dick Steadman's summer program, a number of summers I came here and swam in his camp," Nunnally, who grew up nearby in Avon-By-The Sea, said. "That's how I actually met (Monmouth assistant coach) Steve Levine, I was swimming with him in the summer program a fair amount. My father was heavily involved with officiating and with US Swimming and he would bring me to watch swim meets at Monmouth. Swimming has a part of my life since I joined the YMCA as a six-year-old, and then I joined Central Jersey Aquatic Club (CJAC) which also swam here out of Monmouth. Basically, my whole life, I have been swimming in that pool and been around that pool."

Steadman Natatorium remained despite a hiatus for the Monmouth swim program between Steadman's 1983 retirement and 2015, a majority of the same time Nunnally spent away from the area. In 1989, Nunnally chose to attend his father's alma mater, La Salle, where he was an integral part of the Explorers' team that won four straight MAAC Conference Team Championships. He was a member of several MAAC Championship relay teams and won two individual championships, the 200-yard freestyle and as fate would have it, the 500-yard freestyle like Smith.

"I came into LaSalle as a distance swimmer, that was kind of how I was recruited and started out," Nunnally said. "As I got older and developed a little bit more I was able to swim the shorter events and by my senior year I was able to swim the anchor leg on a lot of the big relays at conference championships. I was always very versatile in my background and was good at everything, maybe not great at anything. I was someone who could move around the lineup and swim different events and things like that. I think that's where I was really successful in the lifeguard competition as well because my skills related well to the versatility to running, swimming and paddling and all the different things it takes to be successful."

As a standout lifeguard, Nunnally competed across the world with the U.S. National Team at the Lifeguarding World Championships in Germany (1992), South Africa (1996) Australia (2000) and Italy (2008). He also captured three National Lifeguarding Championship high point awards, winning two in Cape May, NJ in 1999 and 2003.

Success in the pool and ocean came alongside academic and coaching accomplishments for Nunnally.

"I earned my management degree from La Salle and then I went to graduate school at Ole Miss to get a little different college experience with a big-time college football program and earned my MBA in 1995," Nunnally added. "After I graduated in December, that next spring an assistant coaching job opened up at Seton Hall."

Nunnally's return to New Jersey lasted five years, before he returned to lead his alma mater as the head coach in 1999. The Explorers, who had moved to the Atlantic-10 conference, continuously had teams in the national and regional rankings under Nunnally's direction throughout his 15-year tenure. The 2012 Atlantic -10 Women's Coach of the Year saw a number of student-athletes break school records and capture individual conference titles.

When the unique opportunity to build a program from scratch at Monmouth became a possibility, Nunnally was immediately interested.

"When I found out the program was coming back, it was pretty much right away that I knew it would be a job that I would be interested in," Nunnally remembered. "The job was attractive from a number of perspectives; location, the lifestyle of how it fit a lot of things I like to do in terms of being at the shore, water sports, the idea of moving back to Avon and living in my hometown again. But also, as I went through the interview process looking at Monmouth, the commitment to athletics here in terms of doing what it takes to help the team succeed that was a big factor. I looked at it in terms of the school itself, it's an easy place to sell to people, in terms of the location and the education, and then the Division I opportunity in the sport. All those factors told me that if I was patient with things and worked hard at it we could be successful in time."

And here we are. Successful, but not satisfied in Nunnally's eyes.

"Absolutely pleased with the progress we have made. For us it has been a yearly thing where our goal is to get better. We set goals in terms of where we want to finish in conference and how we want to do from a record standpoint in dual-meets, but the reality is we have continued to improve and get better. I think that is reflected in the level of the practices we have on a daily basis. We have been able to raise the bar to what I consider a Division I level program. There have been challenges along the way, and things you know you didn't expect, but overall I think we have made steady progress. I'm happy with it, I'm not satisfied, we think in time we are a team that can compete with the top teams in the conference but that's also not going to happen overnight."

The individual success at the 2019 MAAC Championships, coupled with team achievements this season have Monmouth swimming on an upward trajectory. In 2019-20 the men's team went 8-2 in dual meets, including 4-0 against MAAC opponents and 5-0 at Steadman Natatorium. The women's team was 6-1 at home, 3-2 in conference meets and earned its best finish (third) and the ECAC Winter Championships.

The message to the Hawks heading into this week's MAAC Championships remains the same.

"I think the expectation is to improve and get better," Nunnally added. "The big thing is to be focused on what we need to do to succeed and put ourselves in the best position to do that. Our goal is we want to be in that top half of the conference, fighting for those top spots. We've set a place goal, we set a scoring goal we want to achieve, but ultimately we want to go into the meet and focus on what we need to do in order to be successful for both the men and women. When challenges have presented themselves over the course of the year we have met those challenges as a team. Whether it's a team we have never beaten before at a dual meet or raising our performance against teams that are stronger than us. Now it's just a matter of focusing in and going out and executing."

Long term, the opportunity for is present for sustained excellence.

"We will continue to get better, we are going to work as a coaching staff to recruit student-athletes who can have an impact at a high level in the conference. It is what we try to do every year and I don't see any reason why we can't continue to do that. Monmouth is a great place, it's a great place to work, and I'm sure for the student-athletes it's a great place to be, living at the Jersey Shore."